Page:Mannering - With axe and rope in the New Zealand Alps.djvu/47

Rh unconsolidated snow. One enormous rock protrudes through the ice in its southern and lower portion, crowned with toppling séracs 200 or 300 feet in height, which at regular intervals fall over the face of the rock and descend in magnificent avalanches. First comes a report like a pistol shot, then follows an almighty crash accompanied by clouds of snow and ice dust, succeeded by a low rumbling thunder as the blocks expend their impetus on the gentler slope below, and finally settle down again into solid ice, to continue their journey of centuries towards the terminal face of the glacier nine miles down the valley. Above the fall stand out, in bold relief against the clear sky, the giant forms of Aorangi and Tasman.

To stand before this wonderful piece of Nature's work and gaze on the weird and fascinating forms of the attendant peaks is an experience not to be forgotten.

The awful and solemn silence of the mountains, broken only now and again by the crash and thunder of an ice avalanche or the screech of a solitary kea, the complete desolation, the loneliness and remoteness from the haunts of men, all tend to inspire one with deep thoughts and feelings. One line in Walter C. Smith's ' Hilda ' expresses more than pages of mine would do— The silence of the mountains spoke unutterable things.

In two hours' time we were across the glacier and on the point of the ridge descending from Mount Haast, which bounds the northern side of the ice-fall. We began the ascent of the ridge amongst snow-grass and